Crafting For Those Dedicated to Experimentation

Kool-Aid

First, I am very excited that I was selected to be one of the testers for the Akerworks Schacht & Wooleewinder Bulky Bobbin’s . I love my Ladybug, and I really love my Woolee Winder, but the Akerworks 3-d printed bobbins are so darn cute too! I am very excited to test this bobbin out and see how it works, updates pending!

Next, I am working on seeing how well Kool-Aid dyes wool without heat. I have some liquid that I am going to put on wet wool and set overnight to see if it sets. I also hope to freeze some and let the cubes thaw on the wool to see how that works. My final experiment is to use some powdered sugar free Kool-Aid on wet wool and let that set for a few hours to see how well that works. It really should be interesting and I’ll put up a Kool-Aid results post next week probably.

This morning I created some beautiful rolags from the Unicorn Wool Top, that I forgot to get a picture of, from part of my March Box from Paradise Fibers. In my spinning I tend toward the short forward draw, but since I had just an ounce of this fiber, and I really wanted to preserve it’s beauty, I decided to practice my long draw. Now I remember why it’s so much fun! The picture is from the Paradise Fibers Website, whose link is above.

Also, an update on the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival: I have my plane tickets and entry tickets for the festival itself. I also ordered, and received, the book from the festival that contains details about vendors, what is going on each day, and so much more! The picture to the right is my copy, the black thing sticking out of the top is my book mark. The cover is just beautiful! From the book so far I have discovered Taproot Magazine, I have the first issue on order to see what it is about. I have joined the Ravelry group dedicated to the festival, from there I have discovered the Buffalo Wool Company and their wonderful promotion to support the Linus foundation.

As of Sunday October 9, 2016 I had spun 3,488 yards of yarn for Spinzilla Credit. This means that for every yard of singles that I spun as well as all that I plied I received credit. Which means that for a 2 ply I spun that wound up 86 yards it would be 86+86+86=258, if I were to do a 4 ply of 86 yards it would be 86+86+86+86+86=430 Spinzilla credit yards, only 86 yards short of taking the 4 plies and spinning 2 skeins of 2 ply yet half of the plying effort. This means little in the long run, but it was great incentive to play with creating a 4 ply yarn Sunday afternoon when my desire to ply was fading quickly. When push comes to shove I managed to spin 1.98 miles of yarn in Spinzilla Credit. I am very proud of my efforts, I think I went through about 3 pounds of fiber so next year that will have to be bulked up a bit.

As ever I am looking toward my next crafting challenge, whatever that may be!

I managed to get my Kool-Aid Fiber carded into rolags and ready for spinning! These rolags are mostly Merino with some Bombyx silk, Bamboo Silk, and sparkly add-ins (angelina and firestar).

I managed to jam all of my rolags into a 40+ quart tub with a flip top lid, and there it will stay until October 3rd when Spinzilla Starts. I am so excited, I was looking at all of the fun sales and things going on in preparation for Spinzilla. By checking out what stash I already have I determined that I have more than enough to keep me busy for Spinzilla and practicing leading up to the event. I have decided that preparing and participating in Spinzilla will equal my second big project this year, I might decide to do some big projects on my weaving loom but for now I am going to keep on with my excitement over Spinzilla!

I had an absolute blast dying some Merino that I picked up earlier this year. I am trying to gear up for Spinzilla this October, in preparation I decided I wanted to spin my own Colorways. To spin my own colors then I need to generate them, starting with dying the fiber. To dye these fibers I soaked the batches of fiber in water for at least 5 minutes, usually longer. Once they were saturated I wrung them out. While they were soaking I mixed up some kool-aid in the color I was looking for. In the case of Yellow I added in some food coloring left over from Easter. I will admit that I added in a glug or two of white vinegar to each of the baths in an effort to maximize the dye absorption.

It was so much fun to set up a few batches on my bathroom sink then go to work or to bed and come back to find the fiber a beautiful color and the water clear or almost clear. Every single time it looked a bit like a miracle.

I had no problems with felting so I plan to spin up the multi-hued batt I created straight from the combed top. The rest of the hues will be blended with different fibers, some silk, some other materials, to create rolags or mini batts to be spun up for Spinzilla!

By my calculations I have about a month to get this fiber carded and prepped for spinning!

These are the results of my Kool-Aid experiment. They were created from the wool I had received with my Schacht Wheel (I’m not really sure what it is). A very pretty wool that did not felt on me when I tried this! I put 3 Kool-Aid lemonaid packets into a plastic shoe box with about 2-4 oz of wool (I do not have a kitchen scale so it is all estimated). I then poured enough water to cover the wool and added about 10 drops of food coloring. The resulting fiber was the fire orange color. After letting it set for about 30 minutes I took it out and began to rinse the fiber. A lot of the dye started to come out of the fiber as I was rinsing. Since I feared losing the beautiful color I decided to use some vinegar to soak the fiber and retain the color, after a 15 minute soak and a thorough rinsing the color remained and the fiber didn’t even have a vinegar stink.

There was a lot of dye left in the water so I decided to throw more fiber into it, again somewhere between 2-4 oz of wool, and another packet of lemonaid kool-aid to help things set. It soaked for about 30 minutes and when rinsed created the beautiful yellow that can be found in both skeins.

I think that kool-aid (helped along with some food coloring if needed) is a great introductory method to dying. I look forward to more experiments in the future, but some fiber is calling my name to be spun!